Watauga County Commission Sues Over Gerrymander

Watauga County districts, redrawn by Ralph Hise

On December 8th, the Watauga County Commission filed a lawsuit in Watauga Superior Court seeking a declaratory judgment on how to implement Sen. Ralph Hise's gerrymandering of Watauga's County Commission districts. The local act that Hise passed has created confusion and actual chaos among the very Board of Election people who will have to implement what they argue is an unworkable law, or send it back to the General Assembly to fix. The Hise bill redraws Watauga's Commission districts and converts them from "residential districts" to "electoral districts" (the new map, above), meaning that in the future the whole county will not vote on all commission seats. Candidates for those seats will have to come from an electoral district and only voters in that electoral district will be allowed to vote on candidates from that district. 

The town of Boone and students at AppState are segregated and isolated in a single district (# 1 on the new map). Districts 3, 4, and 5 are greater in land mass but with fewer voters, are largely rural in character and historically very Republican. In other words, the whole gerrymander is a lead-pipe cinch for producing a guaranteed Republican majority on the Commission in perpetuity.

But whereas Hise promised that "all county commissioners will serve the terms they were elected to," "no terms will be extended," and "no terms will be cut short" -- that promise was simply not true. Because the bill mandates that Districts 3, 4, and 5 will be on the ballot in 2024, which means (shorthand version) that...

Todd Castle in new Dist. 5 has his 4-year term (won in 2022) cut short by 2 years.

Braxton Eggers in new Dist. 3 has his 4-year term (won in 2022) cut short by 2 years.

Ray Russell in new Dist. 2 has his term (set to expire in 2024) extended until 2026.

Furthermore, Dist. 1 (Boone and AppState) has no incumbent commissioner living in district but is not mandated for an election in Hise's bill until 2026. The voters of Dist. 1 will be disenfranchised from representation for two years, or -- worse -- will get a commissioner appointed by the new Republican majority (early in 2025).

The old saying "You can't out-think a man who ain't thinking" applies here, perhaps.